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The current economic crisis is reflected in lower capacity expansion or even capacity contraction, closing of distant activities and reduction of lead time. However, the locations of suppliers are strongly connected with the quality of agricultural products. The transportation from distant locations can largely affect the food production business in all aspects. The article presents how the Extended Material Requirements Planning (EMRP) model enables to evaluate perturbations in lead time and temperature, and shows how distant growing areas of agricultural products, and, as a result, transportation lead times play a crucial role in the net present value calculation. In this paper, we show the impact of choosing a less distant site for growing of agricultural products, and overlapping the transportation and quarantine lead times on decreasing the perishability, hence increasing the added value in multi-level food assembly systems. Also, a case study of Spanish baby food industry is presented, using the principles of the well-developed EMRP Theory.

<p>The European Union, its member states and local authorities have been working for long time on the design of solutions for future sustainable mobility. The promotion of a sustainable and affordable urban transport contemplates the bicycle as a mean of transport. The reasons for analysing the cycling mobility in urban areas, has its origin in the confrontation with motorized vehicles, as a sustainable response to the environment. In this context of sustainable mobility, the research team has studied the use of bicycles in Mediterranean cities, specifically in coastal tourist areas.  The present work shows the development of a mobility index oriented to the bicycle, transport that competes with the private vehicle. By means of a survey methodology, the research group proceeded to collect field data and the subsequent analysis of them, for the development of a mobility index adapted to bicycle mobility, and with possibilities to adapt to urban environments.</p>

Abstract:Due to the increasing number of requests for homecare services, care institutions struggle to perform in urban traffic, which eventually makes travel times longer and less predictable and, therefore, leads to a declining service quality. Homecare delivery scheduling and planning tools must lead to efficient reliable routes that allow the nursing crew to make the least efforts and use the fewest institutional resources, and that consider urban sustainability goals. For the case study, a European city was selected with 58,000 people of whom 73 patients received long-term care at homes provided by 11 homecare nurses. While maximising patient satisfaction, a homecare planning algorithm considered many means of transport and minimised travel times. The study reduced the total nurses' working hours/day by a bus and walking combination, and by comparing if nurses ride e-bikes, which respectively reduced~35-44% of the total time that nurses spent travelling. This result is applicable to an urban environment where the public transport network is sufficient and biking is allowed on a reasonable number of roads. Better homecare management can support the efficient use of resources of health care institutions, high-quality home care and aspirations towards livable communities and sustainable development.

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Spain is the first European producer and exporter of fresh fruits and vegetables. SMEs need to join forces, through collaboration, to make a continuous innovative effort to add value to the sector and face foreign competition. A collaborative network is the way for companies to share abilities and resources, processes and technology. This paper presents the development of a logistic network model, for the fruit-and vegetable companies, based on maturity models. This approach will allow evaluating, in an objective way, the state of the companies and the network from the views of the selected maturity models, the purpose of which is to establish the level of integration and collaboration within the studied network, and to propose evolutionary improvements in the network's collaborative processes.

European cities are facing enormous challenges in accessibility and livability terms due to several European directives, which are compulsory in the mid/long term, traffic congestion levels are still increasing, and air pollution and noise disturbs citizens' lives. This work presents the study carried out in a Mediterranean city to define an Environmental Zone with traffic restrictions for vehicles in the historical centre of the city of Cartagena (Spain) by exploring different urban logistics measures to tackle main problems caused by freight deliveries and pickups in the city centre. These solutions aimed to enhance the efficiency of vehicles, and to reduce both traffic congestion the environmental impacts caused by freight delivery in the city in order to improve urban sustainability.

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